Weird Nitrite Test Results

[ceilidhgirl]

hey everyone

well i'm on week three of my first ever fishless cycle.

things have been going great. about 10 days ago i had my nitrIte spike, my ammonia radings started going down and my nitrAtes started to appear.

i have been adding amonia every couple of days so that my nitrItes are kept happy and have been waiting for both readings to reach zero so that i can do my large water change at the end of my cycle.

the problem is i tested my nitites a couple of days ago and i was very excited because the reading had gone down significantly. however when i tested the next day they had gone back up to the high end of the scale.

so i added my ammonia as usual (just enough to keep the bacteria going) and when i tested again today they were back down again. but what i've noticed is that when i put the indicator into the water from the tank in the test tube, the reading starts off high then slowly comes down.

just to let you know i only ever rinse my test tubes out with water, no detergents and always dry them out really well, so no water contamination.

so basically i dont understand why my readings are low one day then high the next

any help would be much appreciated

cheers guys

ales xx

 

[mark7616]

you need to be adding ammonia daily and your nitrite will go up and down but one day you will test and there will be none it takes usually twice as long as your ammonia spike.

 

[ceilidhgirl]

thanks mark

have been addinh ammonia to bring it up to 4 ppm. i know the nitrite takes longer to go back to zero, but going by the dates its about right fo it to start dropping.

i was just confused as to why i was getting a low reading one day and a high the next

 

[mark7616]

My nitrite reading was fluctuating between 2ppm and around 8ppm then one day i added my ammonia and 8hrs later i had readings of
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5-10 see im lucky i have no nitrate in my tap water my nitrate got up to 80 during cycling but then i added a 2nd filter and its now cycled and running at 5-10ppm but closer to 5